


All Nightmares Start As Dreams

by Anonymous



Category: Hiveswap
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, In Which We Watch One Marvus Xoloto Grow Up (and Become Who He Is)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:09:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26867182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Five times Marvus painted his face (and the first time his face was painted for him).
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16
Collections: Anonymous





	All Nightmares Start As Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. Idk sometimes you just gotta *clenches fist* *starts sobbing because I love my favorite character so much*
> 
> Anyway, this is all just for fun and entirely headcanon. I wanted to explore some aspects of Marvus and the clurch that I never have before! Maybe it's all nonsense but please. Discuss him with me. I'm begging.

The ceremonial brush against your skin is hard and stiff as fuck, scratching at the sensitive skin of your face. The paint it leaves behind is cold and itchy as it dries and tightens like a mask over your features. Not to mention your back and knees are killing you fucking fierce, and your eyes are full to the brim with tears of discomfort. You want to go home. You miss your lusus. 

Three hours you’ve spent here, sitting in the hardwood of the pews, praying for something you barely understand yet. Father Emmett is a great seer of the truth; the other children in your youth group tell you about how he can look into your eyes and see the truth of all your spirit. Then he paints it on your face for all to see.

In your opinion, this is kind of embarrassing. You don't want all these other juggs to know all exactly who you are.

Most children get their faces painted in a few minutes. Hearts, stars, diamonds, and smiles are common at this age: something easy to paint and easy to replicate, even in their untrained hands. Some trolls get less common motifs. One of your castemates gets a tear-stained face, smudged like whoa and wicked mournful. Your sister Chahut gets a wicked looking skull pattern that takes a few minutes to perfect. You’ve been sitting here under the brush for close to 15 minutes. You’re three sweeps old for fuck’s sake! How much soul is there in you to even see?

But when you pull away and Father Emmett hands you the mirror, you understand. Painted around your eyes are a pair of perfect butterfly wings, both delicate and godlike. Your skin is stinging from the brush, your whole face is tight and itchy from the paint even as the sweat underneath turns to grease, and your head is sweaty and sore from where Father held you at the scalp to keep you still. You are supremely fucking uncomfortable.

When Father presses his thumbprint to your forehead, light as snowfall and just as quiet, you don’t feel proud. You don’t feel any sense of belonging. You just feel like a sweaty three sweep old with a greasy face.

* * *

Your first week as a painted face is just as uncomfortable as your first hour. The tugging feeling of the dry paint on your skin still sucks, the uneven lines you barely manage to replicate draw more attention to you than you want to deal with. You never wanted such an auspicious pattern. You don’t like to rely on luck and the goodwill of others. 

Still, you do everything to fit in. You sing your hymns (and you're good at it, damn straight), you know the words you’re supposed to say and some days you almost understand what they mean. When the other children spar and wrestle, you join them. Sometimes you win. 

Most times, you don’t.

Chahut catches your eye one day as she watches you paint layer over layer over your face.  _ Why doesn’t this fit?  _ You think.  _ Why don’t I feel the spirit? _

And yet, when you see the blotchy pattern of her skull face paint, just as uneven as yours- though, somehow, half as self-conscious- she gives you a smile. And she takes away your brush.

“Let me show you,” she says, rubbing a bit at the layers of your paint with her thumb. “It’s easier like this.” She uses her claws to help define the edges of your face paint. She pulls away from you to study her work, then she smiles a wicked smile, grabbing you by the shoulder to show you the mirror.

“Looking good,” she pauses, trying out the taste of a new word on her tongue before she says it out loud. “Brother.”

Your facepaint is just as smudged as it was before. 

* * *

Mother Mayhem finds you in the pews, your knees bloody from hours upon hours of kneeling and praying and begging for understanding. Her hand against your shoulder is so cool and unbelievably comforting that you wonder if she even tried to hide her voodoos. 

“Little Marvus,” she says, her voice raw and hoarse from keeping to a whisper all the damn time. “What troubles you?”

As she swipes her thumb under your eye, it comes back all wet and purple. Guess you’ve been crying. It can’t be a good look on you, a child with a very significant face paint pattern caught crying twice now at church. The fuck. Purples are supposed to be strong. Purples are supposed to be in control. 

You don’t feel either of those things. You feel like a scared three sweep old with more questions than he knows how to form into words.

“I’m think I’m going to the hell pit,” you say, unable to look at anything but the stained glass in front of you. Experience and memory tell you that you’re looking at Jake Jekel, but hours spend staring and praying and searching for answers in the panes show you a cacophony of jagged edges of a thousand different colors, all nonsense. “I’m getting sent echoside, ain’t I?”

“Maybe,” she whispers, sitting down with an unceremonious thump on the floor in front of you. “But you still have a lot of life to live before anyone can decide.” She tugs on your shirt, beckoning you to sit criss-cross on the floor like she is. It’s a bit of a struggle since one of your legs has fallen asleep. The two of you sit in silence for a minute, staring at the stained glass of Jake the Just.

“We get forced to believe this stuff,” you confide in her. She turns to face you, her painted face hiding whatever expression she might be wearing. “Taglia told me. We have to worship our messiahs or we get culled, right?”

_“Sacrificed,_ actually,” she whispers simply. Her face doesn’t change, still inscrutable to you. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t find peace here, despite. I know I have.” She stands, taking your hand in hers to help you up. Your left leg is killing you from kneeling so still for so long. She takes you to the garden outside of the church. You see the slick trail of blood from your evening sacrifice and do your best not to slip.

“We could do a lot worse, Marvus,” she presses her palm between your shoulder blades, ushering you home before the sun comes up. “We may not get a choice, but the messiahs are kind and they are just. You’ll learn.”

She pushes you into the gate that separates the privacy of your hive and property from the outside world. She gives you that same look, teeth bared in a smile before she leaves you behind. 

In her absence, you suddenly recognize the expression: her eyes were wide and her smile was rigid in manic ecstasy.


End file.
